(Newser)
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The timing might be a bit off for tourists hoping to waste away, but that doesn't bother Jimmy Buffett, who's planning to open a 162-room Margaritaville hotel in Pensacola Beach in a week. As tar balls came ashore yesterday, Buffett said he had no plans to delay the opening. "This will pass," he said as walked along the city's beachfront and fishing pier with Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist.

Buffet said the community will get through the crisis by pulling together. He wants people in the area to know that he's there for them as the oil encroaches on their leisure and livelihoods. If Buffett's good for anything, it's "helping people forget their troubles for a couple of hours," the "Cheeseburger in Paradise" singer said. Hundreds of applicants for Buffett's $50 million hotel lined up outside this week for a job fair even as TV trucks filled a nearby parking lot to report on the oil slick's arrival.

Does Jimmy Buffett care if you get cancer ? How safe is the oil on the beach and in the water ? BP should be right in front of this hotel testing the water for PAH ! Can you mix Gulf swimming with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in oil? Local residents need to ask the questions! For example the BP people don't want workers to wear face masks when they cleaning up the oil because it looks bad. Your local Chamber of Commerce people are telling people it's OK to go the beach. The sad part is do beach visitors know the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that some PAHs in oil may reasonably be expected to be carcinogens. Some people who have breathed or touched mixtures of PAHs and other chemicals for long periods of time have developed cancer. Some PAHs have caused cancer in laboratory animals when they breathed air containing them (lung cancer), ingested them in food (stomach cancer), or had them applied to their skin (skin cancer). You have to ask yourself if your willing to put yourself and your chalderns lives on the line here! Who is testing the amount of PAH in the water and in the tarballs found on your beach? Should BP be testing ? Who pays for the tests ?